“Raising rates can do more damage than inflation”- Corriere.it

“We will not accept money that will transform Italy into the refugee camp of Europe”. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in the Chamber, gave a long report in view of the European Council of 29 and 30 June. “We have to manage immigration, it will be a central theme of this summit”. And still on the issue of migrants, he relaunches the need for a radical reform: “The Dublin rules are not only outdated but risky, because they contribute to the tragedies we are witnessing in the Mediterranean”.

The EU is still hot on its heels: “I renew Italy’s closeness in relation to the recent tragedy that took place off the coast of Greece” and “the commitment to crush” the networks of traffickers, but “migration is a European challenge and therefore requires European responses”. How to do it? It is necessary “to launch partnerships with adequate resources”, reflects Meloni, also referring to the “Mattei Plan for Africa which various European countries have shown their appreciation», because «if you want to tackle the issue of immigration, you need to address the issue of the development of Africa».

According to the premier “we cannot leave the power to decide who enters and who does not enter Europe to the slavers of the 20th century”. And then: “Mass immigration has nothing to do with solidarity and affects the weakest and most fragile, starting with those who have the right to be accepted”

During the two-day summit in Brussels, EU leaders will discuss the latest developments in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and European support for Kiev. On the table of the EU Council, then, industrial policy, the single market, competitiveness and long-term productivity of Europe. The dossiers on security and defense (EU-NATO cooperation will be discussed in view of the next NATO summit to be held in Vilnius on 11 and 12 July), migration and external relations (EU leaders will hold a strategic discussion on China ).

Regarding the aggression by Russia, the prime minister stresses that “Italy has all the right cards to play a leading role in the reconstruction of Ukraine”, a country for which she hopes to officially join NATO.

After ECB chief Christine Lagarde announced another interest rate hike in July,
after Salvini and Tajani Meloni also intervenes harshly: “Inflation has returned to hit our economies, a hateful hidden tax that it is right to fight decisively” the “simplistic” recipe of the ECB “does not appear to many to be the most correct path to be pursued”. This is because inflation is not given by “an economy that grows too fast, but by internal factors such as the crisis in Ukraine” and “one cannot fail to consider the risk that the constant increase in interest rates is a more harmful cure than the disease ».

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